Living altruistically is not just a sacrifice, but a choice that benefits both the individual and society in the long run. We will explore why selfish behavior ultimately leads to losses and why altruism is an important value in human society.
Is there a reason to live rightly?
Before discussing the answer to this question, it is necessary to first define what it means to live rightly. Here we will consider right living to be limited to altruistic living. An altruistic act is an act that benefits others but causes harm to the actor. The definition of right living may vary from person to person, but most people would agree that an altruistic life is right. An altruistic life is a moral life, because morality is not defined by law, but is what members of society have agreed upon.
Specific Examples of Altruistic Living: Group Work
Group work is a typical situation that requires altruism for college students. When working in a group, the ideal situation is for everyone to actively participate and cooperate to make the group work effective. However, there are people who do not contribute to group work and “free-ride” on the efforts of other group members. Free-riding in group work is a very selfish act. It is because you do nothing and make other members do more work, and you steal the fruits of others’ labor. How can we prevent this kind of free riding?
We can punish the free-riders and make them cooperate with the group work. Specifically, the way to impose punishment is to have each member of the group rate the level of participation of the other members of the group in each group activity. The points are set as follows: 3 points for average, 2 points for poor and very poor, 4 points for excellent, and 5 points for very excellent, and the average of the evaluation scores of the other members of the group for each activity is imposed as the participation score for that activity. If, after all group activities have been completed, the average participation score is less than the average score of 3, a grade penalty will be imposed. When this penalty is imposed, students will actively participate in group activities to avoid the penalty. Persuasion will also encourage the person to behave in a way that does not allow free riding by reminding them that the altruistic act of cooperating in group assignments will benefit the group.
Why We Should Live Altruistic Lives
Then, is there a reason to live a righteous life, that is, a selfless life? People have a reason to live righteously, and there are two reasons. From an individual perspective, selfish acts result in losses, and from a group perspective, selfless acts are beneficial.
Benefits from an Individual Perspective
First, a selfish lifestyle ultimately harms the individual. Selfish actions may seem beneficial in the short term. However, because humans are social beings and live by forming relationships with others, selfish acts ultimately harm themselves. For example, in the case of group tasks, individuals who are uncooperative in the activity are more likely to be ostracized from the group. In the short term, it is in an individual’s best interest not to work on group tasks. But what about the long run? The selfish behavior of an individual can cause great harm to the rest of the group. It is very unlikely that this person will continue to have a good relationship with the people he has hurt. In addition, avoiding group assignments is an act that damages one’s reputation, so it will be difficult to build relationships with people other than the members of the group. Humans cannot live in isolation from the group, so they will not act selfishly.
There are several hypotheses that explain why humans evolved to perform altruistic acts, which can be explained in two ways: the reciprocity hypothesis and the similarity hypothesis. The reciprocity hypothesis is based on the principle of reciprocity, which states that we should respond to others’ kindness with kindness and to their malice with malice. Retaliation is more beneficial than not, and if you take advantage of it, the other party may retaliate, so you will be driven to act altruistically. This principle of reciprocity applies in repetitive situations, so people with a selfish tendency to receive help from others without giving help to others will not be able to survive in such a group. Therefore, according to the repetition-reciprocity hypothesis, egoistic individuals will have difficulty surviving. The theory of “like attracts like” is that cooperative people tend to interact with other cooperative people, and selfish people tend to interact with other selfish people, so this tendency is suitable for maintaining cooperative behavior and for human evolution in that direction. This means that selfish people associate with selfish people, and altruistic people associate with altruistic people. This theory can explain why people’s reputations can be damaged in group settings. If a person’s reputation is damaged because of their unfaithful participation in a group task, most people will be reluctant to do business with that person, so they will end up meeting other altruistic people.
Benefits of a Collective Perspective
Second, altruistic behavior is beneficial from the perspective of the group as a whole. Group selection refers to the process by which the viability of groups varies according to the characteristics of the group or the number of people with those characteristics, and it determines whether those characteristics spread throughout the group or disappear. This group selection has allowed humans to evolve altruistic traits.
Historically, the above has also proven to be true. First, in a group with a high proportion of altruistic people, there is a high probability of winning in an intergroup conflict. In addition, the degree of success in hunting, which was especially important in the hunter-gatherer stage before humans entered agricultural society, depended on the proportion of altruistic cooperation among the participants. Finally, we can see that in the process of human evolution, we have had to survive in many harsh environments, and that there had to be many altruistic people for this group to survive for a long time.
The Evolutionary Basis of Altruistic Behavior
We can use group selection to explain why humans evolved to be altruistic. However, from the perspective of individual selection, selfish behavior may be advantageous for individual survival. Why does the speed of group selection exceed the speed of individual selection? The reason is that human society has norms that are different from those of animal societies. Although the immediate benefits of selfish behavior may be greater than those of altruistic behavior, the norms may cause the results of altruistic behavior to exceed those of selfish behavior, so it is advantageous to evolve in a way that favors altruistic behavior.
Humans have a reason to live altruistically. I found this reason in two aspects: individual and collective. Altruistic acts ultimately benefit the individual and the collective. The results of altruistic acts may be detrimental in the short term and materialistically. However, when viewed from a long-term or spiritual perspective, they can be seen to be beneficial. Therefore, people have a reason to live altruistically, that is, to live rightly.
